Buckle up ladies, Puketober is upon us
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yay it’s over! Just in time for Christmas advertising on November 1, right on time. Cue the commercials with picture perfect families buying each other trucks outside their mansions and piano music tugging at heartstrings to get you to BUY SOMETHING….
hope to see ya next year puketober. No really, I desperately hope to see you…even though you suck. 0 -
I am relieved to see so many of you that hate that pink crap and all the bc talk in October. It seems so useless to me. It literally makes me cringe! Yay for November
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Buckle up ladies. And Gents
It's just around the corner.
Thanks Travel. It’s been a rough summer, and now there’s a hurricane heading at me in floriDuh.
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And gents...Dont forget the Pinktober site that the pink fans here created a few years ago:
www.PinktoberSucks.com0 -
I have such a love/hate relationship with this time of year. I love the fall, but despise October. Bring on the pink spatulas for “awareness”. <eye roll>.
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Every time I drive by a pink recycling bin I want to smash it with my car...
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Pink has never been one of my favorite colors, but I have a couple of tops. Went to my closet today and decided I could wear them next spring, but not in October. I know that the store clerks who ask for donations are just repeating what the boss told them, so I hate to be snarky to them. But sometimes I just can't help myself. 😕
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I had bmx. I tell them I already donated.
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Spookie- hahaha
My next chemo is in October- hope a cheery receptionist doesn't offer me a pink bracelet like a few years ago- I did make a slightly snarky response - I will hold it together this year.
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love the name, btw. I hear you about the cashier just doing what they are told, it’s really not them, but I feel like I need to make it known that asking of every single person is a bit much. Put fliers out by the register, let the customer say they want to donate.When I’m asked, I usually say “I donated a tumor, I think that’s enough”. They usually give me a look and continue on with the transaction.
i can find myself getting grumpier. I do every year as October approaches. I hate bc, I really hate mbc, I hate pink, I hate the commercialization of the month and “awareness” paraphernalia and I absolutely abhor the cutesy slogans and memes directed at awareness. We are aware; find a damn cure.0 -
I didn't like the color “pink" before I found out I had breast cancer. I don't mind October or the pink ribbons. What I find hard are words associated with Breast Cancer Awareness.
Survivor - What about all the women who survived it until their bodies couldn't fight? The word to me seems to dismiss “all" who fought and passed away. I hate that word. I won't wear it. I didn't have to fight as hard as other women. I just got lucky. I don't want to be misinterpreted as a non-survivor and forgotten if one day that luck runs out.
Fighter - Refer back to survivor.
I kicked Cancer ass - That's just ridiculous. And the women who didn't weren't strong enough to beat it?
Faith - In what exactly? Science or God? Which one should I have more faith in to keep me safe from contracting a deadly stage of Cancer?
While, I don't mind a touch of pink occasionally, I often think of the women of fought before me. The women who are not here today who seem to have zero recognition in the October Pink Awareness. Perhaps one day we could include them in the SURVIVOR Pink Awareness Month. They were fighters and survivors too.
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I’ve already told my family that if they put “she lost her battle with bc” in my obit, I will be back to haunt every last one of them. 🤬.
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wondering44,
Great post! I have lived for 11 years with a single bone met. No one knows why. I have not fought for it nor been a warrior, I have been exceptionally lucky.
My problem with pink washing is that it has allowed too many to believe that bc is easily found and “cured” if you are “aware”. I was stage IV de novo 13 months after a clear mammogram. Some have implied that it was some home fault. Wasn’t I aware enough? Many also believe that few, if any, die from bc anymore 😱. I guess pink boas are more palatable than mortality stats 🙄.
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So today's news is that Katie Couric was diagnosed with breast cancer in June and “has undergone surgery and radiation treatment. In a first-person essay posted to her website, the news media personality, 65, said she received the Stage 1 diagnosis after missing an annual mammogram.“
She missed the annual exam six months ago. Well, even if she had it on time, she may still have had stage i bc. Bc doesn't say, “Haha, Katie forgot! Now we'll make our attack!" Bc doesn’t work like that. And the mammogram does not prevent bc. Katie didn’t get punished by the universe because of a missed appointment.
I do wish her well, of course. But a part of me cringes to think she had meetings (or “ongoing dialogue”) with her “people": her professional advisors, publicist, managers, social media coordinators, to discuss when the right time would be to announce the news, and she strategically chose to reveal it just as Pinktober is upon us. Celebrities always have their “brand" in mind.
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Id rather hear how Shannen Doherty is doing, but I guess Katie knows the age and concerns of her audience like you said, divine. And its the same message of 'oh, mammograms save lives!'. Uh huh - must be nice if you fit the average BC profile in terms of age and type. Then again, I dont think there are younger ladies on national morning shows.
exbrnxgrl is right, though - I know de novo is relatively 'rare' but (this may be confirmation bias, but whatever) it does seem to impact younger ladies (40 and younger) than those in the upper 50s/late 60s. For this age group it seems like BC awareness has been around our entire lives and you still dont think it can hit YOU - not at that age. Better targeted information/awareness for those in ages 30-40, and their medical teams, would probably be more impactful (if we are just talking about awareness) than more pink tops on yogurt and pictures of older women walking 4 miles for BC charity post DCIS surgery (yes, Im cynical!
)We dont get pink overload here, instead you get the blanket cancer charity asking people/offices to host coffee mornings where people donate a homemade cake and then you sling a pound or whatever into a bucket for a slice. Sort of like a bake sale only people REALLY love cake here, so they tend to do pretty well. Hopefully that is all work will maybe do.
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Aaannnddd... the coffee morning was this morning in the lunch room. Only I wasn't in the office :P
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PINK!! I didn't like it even as a little girl. I like it on flowers, not clothes, or ribbons or balloons. I am dreading the "Save The Tatas"
As for Katie; Oh, c'mon, like a few months would have made a big difference? She might have had the all clear and then the BC occured. I didn't miss my annual but here I am de novo. I wasn't "unaware". I did my self exams. One day I felt like the side wire in my bra was biting into me. I took off the bra, I massaged my breast. It felt fine. Literally - about a week late I was in the shower and washing my pits and I felt this HUGE HARD lump in my left breast. F**K!!! The rest is history, a mammo, an ultrasound, a biopsy and a PET. I sometimes think no one believes me when I tell them is just appeared. Since then, our Breast Screening places tell you if you have dense breasts and recommend ultrasounds. It might have been found - who knows three mammo earlier? - had I had an ultrasound. No point second guessing, being bitter, thinking I messed up. Shit happens.
I occasionally look up Shannen Doherty but I can't find any updates.
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years of Dense breasts--> ultrasounds normal also. surgeon visit- lump is a cyst. MRIs showed some cancer--.> clearly victim blaming decreases their chance of getting breast cancer--->.
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I believe you Elderberry.ugh you guys, Dr novo here diagnosed at 40. Literally took off my shirt for shower one day and could SEE the change. Waited a week for mammo and BOOM life changed forever. I see them (de novo) late 30’s early 40’s all the time. How do we get THAT message out?
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1 day down.. 30 to go
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Let me add my two cents. Since my mother had breast cancer, I saw a general surgeon many times a year for 20 years. The surgeon used to palpate for cysts and then aspirate them, 2-3 at a time, no problem. Mammos every year but, I just happened to miss one year.
The next mammo, I was de novo. Tried to find the reason but stopped in order to preserve my sanity.
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I don't understand the problem with Katie Couric? Maybe six months wouldn't have made a difference, but it could have. And what she's feeling about that missed mammogram is totally normal! Many, many women play the "what if" game after a diagnosis. I did. And even though her nodes were clear she had a large tumor and there's a good chance she could become Stage 4 later. I do wish she would talk more about that! She's not out of the woods.
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I totally agree. That part is always missing from the message. That’s one of the reasons I hate this month so much. The message is “hey, catch it early and you’ll be fine for the rest of your life”.. umm, nope. Even clear nodes don’t guarantee you won’t progress to stage iv. There are many of us in that boat.
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I totally agree. My first cancer was found by me in the form of a lump 5 months after my clean mammo. Had the biopsy on 10/31, got "the call" on 11/2. Second lump was also found by me - Stage IV this time.
I hate the "rah-rah-rah" of Pink-tober. I wrote in my blog, this month, that cancer is neither cute nor is it sexy. Cancer sucks - any way you look at it.
Carol
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I just saw a new breast cancer ad this morning" If you were taking verzenio, your cancer probably won't come back.
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Recently on the Gallows Humor forum, amontro, wrote about Puketober and gave me an idea. I don't like "thanks I already gave" because it doesn't get the message across. I think I'll start using "Too late for me, I'm more aware than I hope you ever are."
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I realize not everyone will see the Katie Couric story the same way as I do, and I respect that others feel differently about it, I really don’t know much about things surrounding her diagnosis. To me, tho, how she presents it to the public sounds like: “I wasn’t perfect. I skipped/missed/forgot my mammo appt six months ago and now look what happened.” It’s like she’s blaming herself. Sure, many women do, but *should* we? My point is society places such pressure on women to be pillars of perfection in all areas of our lives. Nothing less will do. The second we’re not perfect, we’re to blame if something bad happens. Maybe Katie would have found the cancer earlier and maybe not. We’ll never know. Like I said, I wish her well.
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No one thinks we should blame ourselves. I was just saying it's a common thing people do with a cancer diagnosis that comes after a missed or late scan. I even did it when I missed a dentist appointment once and turned up at the next one with my first ever cavity! 😂0
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Shifting blame to the patient is a common tactic- especially if it is a women. There are probably just as many women who never missed an annual and had normal mammograms throughout and got cancer - many of whom insisted on a biopsy or other test when their providers tried to tell them they didn't have cancer, than women who were late in getting a mammogram.
The other unhelpful part of pinktober is that it is profit driven- it doesn't help with the progress to irradicate, treat, cure or figure out the cause. it is simply a money maker for the store, the sock maker or whoever.
I think people try to find a way to blame the woman, so they can say I won't do what she did and I am in control of whether I get cancer or not- clearly they screwed up in some way and I won't .
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Divine, You have a good point, and it brings back memories of my very first visit with my breast surgeon. I will never forget her words. She said that none of it was my fault. Nothing I did or didn’t do caused the cancer. I cannot understate the sense of relief I felt. The guilt quickly left my body and mind, and I will never go back there
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